


One More Battle

by DorsetGirl



Series: Sharpe - Weekly Clip Transcripts [9]
Category: Sharpe (TV), Sharpe - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Movie: Sharpe's Peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29707467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DorsetGirl/pseuds/DorsetGirl
Summary: Sharpe calls on all his experience to steady the troops before the last battle.
Series: Sharpe - Weekly Clip Transcripts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172534





	One More Battle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sharpe’s speech starting at about 03:35 in [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxWT1Nzwgk0) from _Sharpe’s Peril_
> 
> All dialogue is borrowed from the show; all other words are mine.

~ ~ ~

Sharpe rejoined Harper at the barricade. There was still no movement in the distant line-up - Dragomirov would be relying on the display of numbers to demoralise the villagers, doing half the job for him before committing himself to the charge. 

Pat murmured, 

“A few words from yourself wouldn’t go amiss. Maybe steady the lads’ nerves.”

Sharpe's heart sank. He hated making speeches, didn’t have the polished flow of words he always thought an officer ought to have. He could only speak from the heart, say what he felt at the time, and it didn’t always come out how he meant.

He looked along the lines of villagers, some of them visibly trembling as they stood with their guns poised. They all looked nervously determined, but they would bend and fall like straws in the wind the moment Dragomirov signalled the advance.

“Aye.” Pat was right and he should have thought of it himself.

“Company!” He stood back from the barricade so everybody could see him, rifle in his right hand, and his left hand firmly holding onto his sword in its scabbard. He would be needing both weapons during the action; they had so few men that he had to use every last one of them to best effect, and that included deploying his best marksmen - himself and Harper - where they could be of most use, while making sure his best swordsman - probably also himself - was armed and ready to finish Dragomirov personally.

But before that, his most experienced field officer - again himself since the loss of Major Tredinnick - was needed to steady the troops. He felt the weight of responsibility; the success of this defence rested almost entirely on his own shoulders.

“Take heed!” He waited a moment for them to turn towards him. 

He still wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to say, but confidence was always half the battle, and Dragomirov’s men had it and his didn’t, so he decided to start by pricking the dignity of the well-mounted troops lined up against them. 

“I know the buggers look smart.” 

He allowed himself a smile. “But take it from me, that’s all they are - strutting peacocks!”

That didn’t seem to get much reaction, so he decided to move on to a more positive message. These men needed to understand that if they did exactly what he told them to do, they _could_ survive this attack.

He cast his mind back to the leaders who’d inspired him when he stood in the line, giving him the confidence to remain steady and do what he had to under fire, and he reflected on how they’d done it. 

He’d thought back then that it was very simple: fighting men want a leader who knows what to do and can be trusted to do it. His years as an officer hadn’t changed his opinion - men fought hard for Wellington not because they liked him, but because they trusted him as a soldier. 

Well, Chitu’s men had no reason to trust Sharpe as a soldier, they didn’t know him. But they needed to understand that he was not just giving them empty words, he was speaking from 25 years of fighting at every level from private soldier to Colonel of a Battalion. So he went with that next.

He turned and started to walk slowly behind the men, who were torn between watching him and keeping wary eyes upon Dragomirov and his men.

“At the Battle of Waterloo, the South Essex Regiment stood all day.”

He faced them, hammering home the message. 

“They beat off two brigades of cavalry. _And_ Bonaparte’s Imperial Guard.”

This lot in their barely-controlled terror reminded him of the South Essex when he’d first seen them, though unlike these stolid farmfolk the South Essex had been a useless pack of over-drilled and underskilled pretty boys, with stocks at their necks and scars on their backs. But he and Harper had taken them in hand, had given them strength and backbone and taught them to take pride in themselves and their new-found skills.

The day before Talavera, he’d lined them up and told them how the next day’s battle would go. He’d promised them that if they did but stand, and fire three rounds a minute, they _would_ win. It was one of the first speeches he'd ever made.

And with that it was suddenly clear what he had to say. 

* * *

He turned and started back along the line. Patrick gave him a tiny wink of encouragement as he passed; he knew how much Sharpe hated doing this sort of thing. Sharpe smiled in acknowledgement and kept walking.

* * *

He’d never forgotten his years in the ranks, and so as an officer he’d seen it as his duty to stand between his men and the authorities, taking to himself the shit that rained endlessly from above and presenting his men so far as he could with clear rules, calm certainties and the knowledge that worrying about things was his job, not theirs. The main thing was to keep the message simple. 

“All you have to do is stand.” 

He relaxed for a moment, mindful of the need to present a calm exterior to the men, and felt his own strength and confidence begin to run deeper as he spoke. 

Whatever came now, there was nothing to gain by panicking. He’d made every possible preparation and Harper had drilled the men of the village until he’d reported they were almost as good as trained infantry and certainly better than some of the Company troops.

Sharpe hoped Pat was right. 

“STAND! Let the cavalry come on.”

When you stood and watched the French coming at you with the sound of the hoofbeats and the endless compelling drums, it was terrifying but at least you knew you had Wellington on your side and you had three rounds a minute on your side, but here in this place they had neither, and he knew far better than most of these men just how terrifying it was going to be.

So it was desperately important that the men understood they must all fire together, when he told them to and not a second before. It was their only hope of surviving this, and that slim enough. He turned and walked up to the barricade to have another look at the threat out on the plain, and gave them the most important message:

“STAND! Hold fire! Until the horses are within ten paces.” In the Peninsula Sharpe had never had to decide for himself how to face a full cavalry charge, but he’d seen enough to know how it worked. 

He started moving back towards Patrick.

He’d also had the benefit of Harris, a man for whom books seemed simply to appear among the piled corpses of a smoking battlefield in the same way as gold coins did for Cooper and garlic sausage and expensive trinkets for Harper. And because Sharpe was an officer and always too busy looking after his men to have much success in the looting department, all his men had quickly come to show their appreciation by offering him a share of their spoils - something he’d never asked for and would never order, but greatly appreciated nonetheless. 

And so, by courtesy of a disgraced debtor from Oxfordshire, Sharpe had come to learn French cavalry tactics from their own military manuals. It seemed likely that Dragomirov, a man of means, experience and education if not morals and basic honour, would have done the same.

Sharpe had now arrived behind the solid reassuring presence of Patrick Harper. In all conscience he couldn’t see his way out of this situation but somehow he still had confidence that this wasn’t his time, that by some miracle he and Pat would come through this together as they had so many times before.

There was just time for one last reminder. The men must be in no doubt as to what they must do. 

“STAND!”

He smiled as he settled himself in his rightful place alongside Harper.

“And the day will be ours.” 

He turned to look at Harper with raised eyebrows. Harper nodded his approval - he’d done what was necessary and done it well. 

Dragomirov shifted in his saddle out on the plain, and Sharpe tightened his grip on his rifle. They’d done what they could to prepare for the worst, and now all that was left was to hope for the best.

~ ~ ~


End file.
